almost directly toward the oncoming pack, the gray leader not a
hundred yards away.

In desperation, she threw herself from the sled, and, grasping at some
dwarf willows as she slid, attempted to check the career of the mad
deer. Twice her grip was broken, but the third time it held; the deer
was brought round with a wrench which nearly dislocated her shoulder.

And now the deer for the first time scented danger. With a wild snort
he turned to face the oncoming foe. A large deer with all his scraggly
antlers might hold a single wolf at bay, but this deer's antlers had
been cut to mere stubs that he might travel more lightly. With such
weapons he must quickly come to grief.

It was a tragic moment. Marian searched her brain for a plan. Flight
was now out of the question, yet defense seemed impossible; there was
not a weapon on her sled.

Suddenly her heart leaped for joy. The fight was to be taken from her
hand. Ad-loo-at, with the faithful oversight which he exercised over
those entrusted to his care, having seen all that had happened had
whirled his deer about, tied it to Lucile's sled and now came racing
over the snow. He swung above his head the trusty native lance which
had meant defeat to so many wild beasts in the days of long ago.

But what was this? Instead of dashing right at the enemy, the Eskimo
boy was coming straight for the reindeer and on the opposite side from
that on which the wolf was approaching.

"He doesn't see the leader," Marian groaned. "He thinks the rest of
the pack are all there are."

But in another second she knew this to be untrue, for, stooping low,
the boy appeared to go on all fours as he glided over the snow; he was
stalking the wolf even as the wolf was stalking the deer.

Realizing that the wolf was planning to attack the deer and not her,
Marian set herself to watch a spectacle such as she would seldom
witness in a lifetime.

She had often seen the antics of the Eskimo and Chukche hunters as they
performed in the cosgy (common workroom) during the long Arctic nights.
She had seen them go through this gliding motion which Ad-loo-at
practiced now. She had seen them turn, leap in the air and kick as
high as their heads with both feet, landing again on their feet with a
smile. She had admired these feats, which no white boy could do, but
had thought them only a form of play. Now she was beginning to realize
that they were part of the training for just such emergen